The Lives of Others

If ever I feel lonely, or sad about being single, or am daydreaming about having a husband to nag about the utility room ceiling not being painted, nothing salves that ‘road-not-taken’ longing better than watching two or three episodes of ‘The Ramsey Show’.  The financial infidelities people suffer are heart-stopping.  Men taking not just their own pension fund, but their wife’s fund too, and losing the lot, day-trading on the stock market.  Distraught women phoning for advice about what to do. It’s stomach-dropping.  The red flags that they ignored, ‘He wanted me to sign a pre-nup that was a blank piece of paper”.  Spoiler alert: she didn’t sign it, but still married him.  It’s never useful to compare, until it is.  The man I used to know, who had died, came to mind.  Took a bunting of red flags to wake me up.  I chose my own life, but only after it briefly flashed before me.  A last ditch attempt to get us back together, his parents had given us a weekend at their timeshare.  First evening, he went to the club, I went to the chalet.  He got so drunk, his eyes looked sugar-glazed.  He was too passive-aggressive to ever be violent; I wasn’t afraid of him; this was just my thought process as he fell over furniture at 1am.  I thought, ‘This is how it happens.  He wouldn’t mean it, but he’s drunk and upset, and you have put yourself into this situation because you couldn’t finally say ‘No, it’s over’.’ 

Weeks afterwards, realised he had been stealing money from me.  Not enough to notice immediately, not for long, but he did.  Back then, I felt crushing shame.  Later, understood the lessons; work on boundaries, self-esteem, PAY ATTENTION! 

And that it was worth every penny to get closure.     

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken

https://www.youtube.com/@TheRamseyShowEpisodes